ISLAMABAD, Oct 17 (Focus Pakistan) - Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar has ordered officials to speed up Pakistan airport upgrades project and widen Pakistan’s international flight network. The government statement announcing the order names no airport, no new route, no budget and no deadline.
Dar gave the instructions at a meeting in Islamabad on Friday. He wants ongoing projects finished faster, the PID said. On safety, he told aviation authorities to keep to international rules. Passengers, foreign visitors and the airlines themselves deserve better treatment at Pakistani airports, he added, tying civil aviation directly to the country’s growth, its trade and its tourism earnings.
AN OLD AGENDA
The meeting echoed one from April 2023, when Dar, then finance minister, sat with Bajwa and aviation officials to review a deal with the International Finance Corporation to outsource the operations of three major airports.
More than three years later, Islamabad International Airport still has no private operator. Earlier this year the government dropped a plan to give the airport to the United Arab Emirates after Abu Dhabi kept putting off naming a company to run it. In January, officials told a Senate committee that Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Türkiye wanted in, and that open bidding would replace a deal between governments.
The Asian Development Bank signed on as transaction adviser on July 15. Its agreement with the Privatisation Commission covers a long-term concession for Islamabad airport. Officials said then that due diligence would take about three months and the full transaction about nine, a timeline that puts the first checkpoint around now.
Groundwork for Karachi and Lahore has started too. Under the plan, the state keeps ownership of all three airports, and private firms would only run them.
Friday’s statement did not say whether Dar’s instructions cover those concessions.
PLANES BEFORE ROUTES
Airports cannot add routes on their own; airlines have to fly them. Arif Habib Corporation led the group that bought 75% of Pakistan International Airlines for 135 billion rupees in December 2025. After the auction, Arif Habib said PIA had just 14 aircraft flying and put fleet growth at the top of his list.
Europe reopened to Pakistani carriers in 2024, and Britain followed in 2025. Both had shut them out after the 2020 Karachi crash and a row over pilots’ licences.
PIA returned to London Heathrow in March after six years away. From Oct. 27 it plans to fly to London every day, up from four times a week, with five flights from Islamabad and two from Lahore.
PIA still had no clearance to fly to the United States when the sale went through. Any push into new markets will rest on the safety oversight that Dar singled out on Friday.
The PID gave no passenger or cargo targets and named no airline partners. It announced no route approvals and set no completion dates for any project. It also identified no safety deficiencies and introduced no new rules.
For airlines and the investors circling Pakistan’s airports, the next signal will come from the concession timetable rather than another meeting. Dar has asked for speed. The bid documents for Islamabad will show whether the government can deliver it.
